Ira Martin
The Showboat
1933

About the Item

The Showboat (1933) is a vintage silver gelatin photograph by the renowned Ira Martin. This masterwork was so esteemed, that it was exhibited, in the 1930's, around the United States, including in Brooklyn, Chicago, East Orange, New York, Philadelphia and San Jose. This silver gelatin photograph exhibits the tonal qualities of a platinum print, and the photograph's composition is extraordinary. The content also exists on several levels. On a basic level, it appears to depict a 1930's crowd watching a barker and performers on the S.S. Duke Mills Showboat, while it is docked on the Mississippi River in New Orleans. However, after contemplating the photo, one sees much additional activity, including African American performers, beneath the word "Plantation", looking down on the show from the boat's balcony; two men holding a conversation and the shadows of a kissing couple reflected on the pavement in the left foreground. Equally remarkable is the near empty right upper quadrant, which depicts a furling American flag against a cerulean blue sky. Frankly, this photograph belongs in a museum, due to the historic uniqueness of a time, place and event that will never be captured in such a profound manner again. Signed by the photographer, recto (front) and verso (back). Ira Wright Martin (1886-1960) was a photographer who focused on architecture and street scenes, as well as abstract and still life works. Martin was raised in Michigan and became an aerial photographer for the Signal Corps in France, during World War I. He was an early student of Clarence White in 1918-1919, and held a ten-year position as President of the Pictorial Photographers of America (PPA), from 1927 until 1937. While at the PPA, he published Light and Shade, which moved the association away from Pictorialism to the aesthetics of modern photography. Martin also had a 40 year career as personal photographer at the Frick Art Reference Library collection in New York, New York. During his lifetime, Martin exhibited at galleries related to the Clarence White School in the 1920's and surrealist, Julian Levy's gallery in 1932. His work also appeared in the first issue of US Camera in 1936. Ira Martin broadened the meaning of photography to encompass not only pictorial portrait and still life photographs, but also modern, "in the moment" street scenes. His photographs are in more than a dozen major U.S. museum collections and, since his death, there have been two retrospectives of his work.

Creator:

Ira Martin (American)

Creation Year:

1933

Dimensions:

Height: 12.5 in (31.75 cm)Width: 9.688 in (24.61 cm)

Medium:

Silver Gelatin

Period:

1930-1939

Condition:

Gallery Location: